Why stretching and warming up are not the same

The difference between warming up and stretching

Do you warmup or stretch
before starting your workout? When we
first start working out it’s easy to make this mistake: we stretch before the
workout, and why we do it? Because we see everyone doing it! At the gym or at the
park before running we see people stretching their legs, rotating their knees
and ankles in circular motions; because we see them exercising we think it’s ok
what they do and we imitate them.

In reality those little
things they do are not good for your articulations or your muscles and they
will cause you to injure easily. Why? Because all your body its cold and you
are stretching your tendons and muscles instead of warming them up.

If this is confusing to
you, don’t worry because I’m going to start from the basics. On today’s post I’m
going to explain you the difference of warming up and stretching and when to do
each one.

Let’s start with warmup;
in simple word warmup, it’s the act of preparation of your body for an exercise
routine. This means doing a series of exercises
that will help your muscles get ready for a workout because it will increase
the temperature of your body. How do you
prepare your body? There are several exercises you can do the most common one
is doing cardio like:

Jogging, jumping the
rope, jumping jacks, knee up jump … in my previous post I posted a video with a
couple of low impact exercises that will also help you warm up.

It is recommended to do
10 to 15 minutes of warmup before starting your workout.

Now let’s talk about Stretching:
is the act of extend a part of the body
to its full length in this case what we are going to extend are the muscles. This
will prevent injuries like cramps and muscle contractions.

How do you stretch: you
can stretch when you try to reach your foot with your hand without bending your
knees, or touching the floor with your hands without touching your knees, while
doing a split. You must feel how your muscles stretch and it should be painless.

It is recommended to
always stretch after a workout for 5 to 10 minutes, the purpose of this is to
avoid injuries and to get more flexibility.

Why it is important? All this
is meant to help your body prepare for the workout routine and help recover
from that workout. If you do them in the wrong order you will be prone to injuries
you can injure your muscles, your tendons and articulations.

Stretching before a work out it’s like trying
to stretch an elastic band after you put it in the fridge, what would happen is
that the elastic band breaks, the same thing can happen to your muscles and
tendons. Also doing them wrong or at the wrong intensity can also cause injures
especially when you are stretching.

Some people force themselves when they stretch;
you need to start on a low intensity ad work your way up: if you can’t reach
the floor with your hand without bending your knees don’t force it too much
just enough for you to feel how your muscles are stretching but it should be painless,
and if you do it every single day one day you will reach the floor.

Same thing with the
warmup, the warmup is meant to prepare your body for the workout, don’t exhaust
your self-warming up, it should be in a low intensity and not that many reps,
otherwise you will be so tired from the warmup and won’t be able to do your
workout routine.

Do I have to do this every
time I work out? Yes. Why? Helps prevent common sports injuries, sometimes as
we get more experience working out we forget to warm up ang do only the routine
and don’t stretch at the end because we forget or we are bored of doing it
every single time, and later on we injure ourselves and we wonder why? If I have
been doing the exact same thing for over 3 months.

As an instructor, I see this happens a lot,
and is always because people don’t warm up and don’t stretch, usually they hurt
themselves doing the routine specially if they are lifting weights and they get
cramps and muscles contractions more often specially on the legs.

Don’t forget to take 10
minutes before and 10 minutes after your work out to warmup and stretch your body,
you will see a difference on how you perform doing your workout, your
flexibility will increase, won’t be sore the day after, won’t have any more
cramps and you will feel even better.

I really hope this little
explanation can help anyone who’s start working out or have any questions on
how to properly work out and if you want an specific post on routines for
warming up or stretching please leave it in the comments down below.